Essa Faal and Lamin Bo Baaji engaged in a back and forth over illegal detention at the NIA, prompting the lawyer to forthrightly tell the former NIA director general in his face it was easy for one to sit at the TRRC and say, ‘I’m not aware’.
“It is easy for you to sit here and say I’m not aware. But you see, you’re responsible for what happened at the NIA during this period,” Faal told Mr Baaji on Thursday, who was testifying on illegal detention during his time as NIA boss back in 2008.
“What I’m not aware, I will say I’m not aware because what I will not like to happen to me I will also not like it to happen to someone else. That’s why I said I am not aware,” Baaji fired back at Faal as he testified on people who got illegally detained at the NIA when he was head of the agency.
Faal then countered: “Well you can said that but what I am trying to put to you is, this (log book) was your tool. It was your tool to monitor. You agree that if you had looked at it, you will see that illegal detentions were happening? You failed to look at it?”
Responding, Baaji simply said, ‘no’.
“Did you look at it?” a relentless Faal asked.
“I do get records about people detained but the book is not my role for me to be checking it. There are people responsible for the book,” Baaji replied.
Faal pressed further: “Mr Baaji, did you check the book or did you not check the book?”
“I did not check the book. I have said it initially that I will not say anything that is false,” Baaji responded.
Faal pressed again in a long back and forth: “Do you agree that if you had checked the book you would see that people still continued to be illegally detained?
“Yes that can happen,” Baaji replied.
